Quilt Challenge - Done!

The past January or February, my niece Sarah and I were texting each other about various things and the subject of our unfinished Stepping Stones quilts came up. We were encouraging each other get them done when Sarah said, "Let's set a deadline. How about Mothers' Day?" 

Shoot, that was over three months away so I said, "Sure! I can do that." After all, my top was completed and it just needed quilted and bound. Well...you guessed it. I waited until the last few days to finally complete that quilt, but it's done! 

I had never been totally convinced that the borders I made were quite right (I changed it from the pattern for a number of reasons) and I had that quilt out so many times trying to decide if I should change them. I finally just said, nope! They are staying as they are.

Then the decision on how to quilt it needed to be made. I had visions of specialty/custom/heirloom quilting, but no time or the skill to do that and that bummed me out. I kept thinking, maybe, just maybe I'd wake up one morning and realized that I'd been blessed with those quilting super powers of which I'd been dreaming. 

Sadly that never happened so I had to change my plans. 

Last month I decided on a design to use (Spilled Ink by Sarah Ann Myers) and happily and quickly got it quilted. I didn't have the time to bind it right away, plus I was thinking about adding a flanged binding, so this quilt was put in the "To Be Bound" pile. That was a big MISTAKE! It stayed there until finally on Friday I told myself that I HAD to decide on the binding and get this done.

I made it happen and here are the results. (The quilt is sideways in the picture. I guess I need to tighten my clothes line so I can hang longer quilts on it. Oh, and use it for drying my clothes.)

  

I love the backing fabric I chose. You can also see the quilting a bit better here.

Sarah is finishing her's up as well, but she has an excuse for waiting. Besides having three young children, she broke her wrist and just got the cast off recently. I can't wait to see her final quilt.  :-)

Another reason I am thrilled to have this finished is that I told myself I could not start a new Judy Niemeyer quilt until I finished this one. :-)  I think that perhaps I should inventory my UFOs before actually staring something new. I should quilt a few more, finish up the piecing on a few and then start the next Judy quilt. 

Yes, that's the plan. But of course, I can still start looking to decide which quilt I'm going to make. I just won't start it. Which pattern should I choose? Should I use one of the kits I have? Should I make a kit for one? Oh the choices! What a wonderful conundrum I have!